Available with prior consent of the CELT project for purposes of academic research and teaching only.

Manuscript source for the Irish text
Dublin, Trinity College Library, H 3 18, a vellum of the 16th century.
The edition used in the digital edition
Kuno MeyerFinn and the Man in the TreeRevue Celtique25ParisÉmile Bouillon1904344–349

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

The electronic text covers pages 344–349. The English translation is available in a separate file.

Text has been proof-read once.

The electronic text represents the edited text including footnotes.

Quotations are rendered q.

When a hyphenated word (hard or soft) crosses a page-break, the page-break is marked after the completion of the hyphenated word (and punctuation).

Ancient Laws of Ireland published under the auspices of the Brehon Laws Commissioners have repeatedly been made the subject of severe but just criticism. Among other things, the urgent necessity of a collation of the printed text with the original manuscripts from which O'Donovan and O'Curry made their transcripts has often been pointed out. Such a collation I hope will soon be undertaken
by members of the School of Irish Learning founded in Dublin, and the results laid before the public. But far more than this would be necesary if the student is to be supplied with a critical edition of the various texts contained in the four voulmes. O'Donovan and O'Curry selected certain manuscript versions without consulting and comparing, except in a few instances, other copies which often furnish better readings, supply gaps, or contain additional matter of importance. Perhaps now that the first volume is out of print, the Commissioners may see their way to entrust a new edition of the Senchas Mór based upon all existing copies to a scholar of recognised standing. To show by example what important additions to our knowledge may be expected from such an edition I print here an interesting story of the Finn cycle taken from the version of the Senchas Mór contained in the vellum codex H. 3. 18. It is given as an example of the practice of incantation called imbas forosnai, and has, so far as I am aware, not been preserved elsewhere.

As did Finn ua Baiscne. When the fian were at Badamair on the brink of the Suir, Cúldub the son of Ua Birgge came out of the fairy-knoll on the plain of Femen (ut Scotti dicunt) and carried off their cooking from them. For three nights he did thus to them. The third time however Finn knewI take 'norat' as the Latin word. and went before him to the fairy-knoll on Femen. Finn laid hold of him as he went into the knoll, so that he fell yonder.allda anall= alla anall, LL 88a 6, contracted into allánall, LU 84b 17. When he withdrew his hand, a woman met himfritninnle, from fris-indlim, with infixed -dn-, but I do not know the exact meaning. (?) coming out of the knoll with a dripping vessel in her hand, having just distributed
drink, and she jammed the door against the knoll, and Finn squeezed his finger between the door and the post. Then he put his finger into his mouth. When he took it out again he began to chant, the imbas illumines him and he said [Here follows an untranslatable rhetoric].

Some time afterwards they (i.e. the fian) carried off captive women from Dún Iascaigoc Dún Iscaig for Siuir, Rev. Celt. 11, 242. in the land of the Dési. A beautiful maiden was taken by them. Finns mind desiredatecoboride seems to contain some form of the verb ad-cobraim. the woman for himself. She set her heart on a servant whom they had, even Derg Corra son of Ua Daigre. For this was his practice. While food was being cooked by them, the lad jumped to and fro across the cooking hearth. It was for that the maiden loved him. And one day she said to him that he should come to her and lie with her. Derg Corra did not accept that on account of Finn.atagegai (she desired him?) domnid do is obscure to me. She incites Finn against himcotsáid, 3. sing. pres. ind. with infixed pronoun of con-sáidim, verb noun cossáit. and said: Let us set upon him by force! Thereupon Finn said to him: Go hence, said he, out of my sight, and thou shalt have a truce of three days and three nights, and after that beware of me!fom-cialta-sa, 2. sing. imper. of fo-ciallur.

Then Derg Corra went into exile and took up his abode in a wood and used to go about on shanks of deer (si uerum est) for his lightness. One day as Finn was in the wood seeking him he saw a man in the top of a tree, a blackbird on his right shoulder and in his left hand a white vessel of bronze, filled with water, in which was a skittish trout, and a stag at the foot of the tree. And this was the practice of the man, cracking nuts; and he would give half the kernel of a nut to the blackbird that was on his right shoulder while he would himself eat the other half; and he would take an apple out of the bronze vessel that was in his left hand, divide it in two, throw one half to the stag that was at the foot of the tree, and then eat the other half himself. And on it he would drink a sip of
the water in the bronze vessel that was in his hand, so that he and the trout and the stag and the blackbird drank together. Then his followers asked of Finn who he in the tree was, for they did not recognise him on account of the hood of disguise which he wore.

Then Finn put his thumb into his mouth. When he took it out again, his imbas illumines him and he chanted an incantation and said: 'Tis Derg Corra son of Ua Daigre, said he, that is in the tree.